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The Ugly Truth About Beauty

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Submitted By Gabe0930
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Rehtorical Analsysis of “The Ugly Truth About Beauty” There is a cliché quote that people say, “Beauty is in the eye of beholder.” But in the essay “The Ugly Truth About Beauty” (1998) Dave Barry argues about how women who spend countless hours on their so called “beauty” whereas men seem not to care. Barry uses juxtaposition and exaggeration to poke fun at men and women behavior and shed light on the harm that the beauty industry is doing. When Barry argues his point of his essay he addresses both genders, but more specifically teenage to middle age men and women, but he writes about it in a humorous and light-hearted manner. In the essay, Barry juxtaposes men and women views of beauty by using the famous supermodel, Cindy Crawford, as the standard of apperance that women strive to achieve, even though that the women could never exactly look like Cindy Crawford, no matter how much or the way you apply the make-up. As for the men Barry uses the famous actor Bradd Pitt, as the strandard that men, not necessairly try to achieve, but as how a man is not suppose to be or act. He claims that men look at Brad Pitt as a pretty boy and that he would be ignorant to the tasks of a real man. Barry uses a different examples to juxtapose men and women view about beauty using Barbie and Action figures. He uses action figures for, of course, the men and that men not strive to look like the action, but how men uses action figures as a model of how a man is supposse to act and carry himself. In contrast Barry uses Barbie as women standard of apperance. Women want to look like Barbie, but women would have to be “seven feet tall and eighty-one pounds of which fifty-three of those pounds would be bosoms.’ Even though that was a bit of exaggerated, that is really what women are trying to achieve. Barry also juxtatposed the time that men and women spend on apperance. Men would

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